On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we recap the best of the best from 2017 and discuss what the YFP team has planned for 2018.
YFP End of Year Giveaway
The team at YFP is excited to be launching an end of the year giveaway. We are giving away 3 prize backs valued at over $500 each. You can enter the contest by clicking on the image below or by going to www.yourfinancialpharmacist.com/2017-giveaway. Entries will be accepted through 12/31/17 and three winners will be selected on/around 1/1/18.
On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we help you baby step into creating your financial plan by giving you the 2 things that you should focus on first.
YFP End of Year Giveaway
The team at YFP is excited to be launching an end of the year giveaway. We are giving away 3 prize backs valued at over $500 each. You can enter the contest by clicking on the image below or by going to www.yourfinancialpharmacist.com/2017-giveaway. Entries will be accepted through 12/31/17 and three winners will be selected on/around 1/1/18.
Featured on the Show
YFP Episodes 24 & 25 – 10 Financial Moves to Make Before the New Year (Part 1 & 2)
On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we continue a two-part series where we cover a list of 10 financial things every pharmacist should do to wrap up the year and to set themselves up to have an awesome New Year.Episodes 25 Special Giveaway
Along with this episode, we have created a free checklist that will:
Provide you a checklist of 10 financial things you should do prior to the year ending;
Make sure you take advantage of any available end-of-year tax savings;
Help you hit the New Year with the momentum you need to crush your financial goals!
The following post is sponsored by the American Pharmacists Association (APhA). APhA has been committed to improving medication use and advancing patient care since 1852. APhA is the largest association of pharmacists in the United States, with more than 62,000 members. Your Financial Pharmacist is excited to be partnering with APhA to deliver exclusive personal finance education to its’ members. You can learn more about what APhA has to offer to help you expand your knowledge, strengthen your voice, advance your practice and build your community at http://www.pharmacist.com/join-now.
By: Deeb Eid, PharmD
Walking through the gliding grocery store doors, white coat in hand, scrubs, and a granola bar, I arrived for my first day. With the expectation of jumping right into workflow, my preceptor greeted me at the entrance to the pharmacy and he said something very unexpected. “Welcome to your first day of rotations. Today’s assignments include researching the 30 companies in the Dow Jones, explaining what they each do, and heading to the brokerage firm down the street to open up your first investment account.”
Talk about an interesting first day to my final year APPE rotations!
Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered
Throughout my time in pharmacy school, I never really gave much thought to “personal finance” beyond getting my first credit card to “build good credit”, opting in to my employer 401(k) plan because my manager helped me set it up, and handing my W-2 tax papers to my father in hope for a return to buy something new and shiny that Summer. It was not until my first day of APPE rotations and this interaction with my preceptor that I really started to get into the “financially fit” mindset.
During that APPE rotation, I learned a lot about management in community pharmacy, but the lessons he taught me about financing, budgeting, and investing have been the most impactful on my career and personal life. We talked about stock market indexes such as the Dow Jones, S & P 500, and others, but what really got me interested was learning about the companies themselves, how they operated, and how they impacted regional, national, and global economies.
I started investigating “bull markets” versus “bear markets”, EFTs (Exchange Traded Funds), and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust). My preceptor would always use the phrase “bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered” to stress the importance of doing my “homework” before investing and to avoid becoming a “pig” (warning about excessive greed). Slowly, but surely, I was starting to speak and understand “financial” language. In addition, I gained the courage to open up my first investment brokerage account and even made my first investment (which by the way did not go so well). As I continued through my P4 year, the knowledge continued to grow, so did the conversations, curiosities, and investments made to my account.
After some reflection, one major takeaway from this experience is that simple encouragement and challenge by someone I looked up to, allowed me to start taking ownership and hold myself accountable to becoming “financially fit”. I also learned that similar to developing pharmacy knowledge, it takes time and patience to build financial education and there is a wealth of information available to choose from. A third lesson is that you can not be afraid to take risks and it takes courage to do so, but once you learn the critical importance of building your “financial muscles” on a consistent basis, it starts to become second nature (just like knowing brand and generic names).
I started to look at my future career options, the practice of pharmacy, and decision making from a different lens. Understanding personal budgeting and applying this concept to pharmacy budgeting, I started to compare and contrast the effects this could have on practice. In addition, starting to understand how to allocate money in my personal life allowed for investigation of how pharmacies might allocate and maximize their investments of resources for better patient care and health outcomes.
A breeze to the East
Shortly after completing my APPE rotations, I found myself moving from rural Southeast Michigan to the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. to begin my one year Executive Residency. I was excited to begin the new journey, and to continue growing my “financial muscles” throughout the process. This would not be my first time living outside of my parents house, but it was the first instance I would primarily be handling some of the financials of the apartment with my new roommate. Learning to pay the rent and utilities through an online portal, navigating a lease agreement, and budgeting for the move itself were all brand new challenges. In addition, moving to a new city came with additional costs one may not think about ahead of time such as transportation (metro, Uber, taxi, bus), grocery delivery (not having a car), or travel (plane tickets back home).
From a personal budgeting perspective, there was a shift in how to allocate funds and a lot of small lessons that I learned to manage throughout the process. One difference was that I now had a constant stream of income on a bi-weekly basis and I also had a variety of bills to pay each month alongside of goals for investing, spending, and saving. Some expenses such as getting a plane ticket back home were easy to plan for ahead of time, but others such as getting an Uber on a rainy day (versus taking the metro/bus) were not.
Through the process I learned that automating with tools or apps such as Mint, Mvelopes or even an Excel sheet to keep track of spending, investing, and allocations really made this process much easier. Utilizing auto pay for bills also helped to decrease some stress. Another lesson learned was to find what already had been working in my life and apply the same concepts to finance. I realized that I loved using my Google calendar to keep track of a lot of my work and personal related activities so I started using the same calendar to mark when bills were due, set reminders, and give myself a “monthly” view of financial related activities. Keeping information in a singular and easy to use access point can be critical to making this as least of an annoyance or hassle as possible.
As I mentioned before, it takes patience and time to figure out what works best for your situation and preferences. I certainly had a lot of failures along the way, but eventually became much more comfortable because I had the courage to keep trying different methods and tools until I found what worked for me.
One at bat
Thinking back to some milestone moments (similar to my first day of APPEs) that influenced my journey, one that sticks out in particular was attending APhA’s Day of NP Life event which usually takes place on a weekend in mid July. As I started my career in D.C., this was one of the first meetings I attended and heard YFP’s own Tim Ulbrich passionately share great information about finance topics. A key part of this meeting was that there were other APhA New Practitioners in the room who had similar questions and relatable experiences. We were able to learn from each other’s experiences, talk at the meeting, and continue to stay in touch after the meeting. It also reinforced that I was not alone in the journey to become more “financially fit” and had others to lean on for help along the way.
Overall, each of us have unique pathways and experiences that influence our financial decision making. We also interact with others along the way that help to shape our perspectives of how we view personal finance and economics in general. The biggest takeaway I have learned thus far on my financial journey is that we each only live one life in which time can not be slowed down. While I personally do not believe money should be the biggest priority in life, I also realize the opportunities that can open up, and the impact it can have on everyday living. We all have a choice to learn about finance, educate ourselves and those around us, and help to leverage this knowledge to make a positive impact in the world as a result.
As entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk said: “Time is the one asset none of us are ever going to get more of.” Knowing this, my outlook is that if we only have “one at bat”, why not hit a grand slam?
About the Author:
The following post was written by Deeb Eid, PharmD. Deeb is a 2016 graduate of The University of Toledo College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor/Experiential Coordinator at Ferris State College of Pharmacy in Grand Rapids/Big Rapids, MI. He also served as the first Executive Resident at the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) in Washington, D.C this past year. Deeb’s vision of social and interactive education for all audiences about the profession of pharmacy has led to inception of Facebook and Twitter pages branded as Pharmacy Universe. For any questions, please contact him at [email protected].
On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we begin a two-part series where we cover a list of 10 financial things every pharmacist should do to wrap up the year and to set themselves up to have an awesome New Year.
Episodes 24 Special Giveaway
Along with this episode, we have created a free checklist that will:
Provide you a checklist of 10 financial things you should do prior to the year ending;
Make sure you take advantage of any available end-of-year tax savings;
Help you hit the New Year with the momentum you need to crush your financial goals!
On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we’re diving into something everyone is talking about right now: the holidays! We’re going to share our tools and tips for managing a painless financial holiday, without compromising the fun and excitement of this most wonderful time of year.
Episodes 23 Special Giveaway
Along with this episode, we have created a free guide that will help you have a painless financial holiday (with no Rx needed). This step-by-step guide will help you:
Account for all of your holiday expenses;
Identify creative ways to save money during the holiday season:
Develop a December budget that will put you in control;
On Episode 22 of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we discuss the importance and impact that giving can have in your life and with your financial plan. We will hear from several pharmacists throughout the show to learn about areas they are passionate about giving towards and why they choose to give despite having competing financial priorities.
On Episode 21 of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we wrap up our two-part series talking about six reasons pharmacy graduates will struggle to build wealth and what they can do to combat these factors working against them.
Episodes 20-21 Special Giveaway
Along with this series, we are providing a YFP step-by-step spending plan (budget) template that will put you on the path to putting purpose to your spending each month. As this series highlights the factors working against us to build wealth, the reality is that we need to be more intentional about our monthly spending in order to achieve our long-term goals.
This YFP spending plan Excel template is ready to go with formulas that will allow you to easily create a zero-based budget.
By Tim Ulbrich, PharmD
YFP Founder and Co-Author, Seven Figure Pharmacist
The following post is from an interview I conducted with Kristopher Gillespie, BSPS, regarding how his involvement in the Army will result in graduating from pharmacy school in 2018 with very little student loan debt! Kris is a PharmD Candidate (Class of 2018, University of Toledo College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Question: Kris, tell us a little bit about yourself and your military service leading up to attending pharmacy school.
Answer: I am currently 28 years old, married with 2 children, both boys, and in my last year of pharmacy school. I graduated high school in 2006 and decided to join the Army right after high school. I joined the Army as a 68Q or a pharmacy technician. After completing basic training, I went to Fort Sam Houston, Texas to complete my Advanced Individual Training (AIT) school, aka pharmacy tech training. After completion I was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina where I worked in a hospital on base in the inpatient, outpatient, and a compounding/supply pharmacy over a period of about 4 years. I completed 5 years of active duty and then another 1 ½ years in the Army Reserve. I was never deployed so all my training and experience came from the hospital I worked at.
Question: Kris, you are on the path to do what very few pharmacy students have been able to do…accrue a VERY LITTLE amount of student debt. How were you able to do this?
Answer: One of the best benefits in my opinion of being an active duty soldier is that you can take 1-2 classes per semester from a distance learning center or main campus (if one is close enough) and the Army pays the tuition. All you have to do is buy the books. I finished 31 credit hours of classes while on active duty usually taking 2 classes at a time. My AIT and Army experience gave me another 31 elective credits. After I finished my 6.5 years in the Army I decided to go to school full time. The Army GI bill pays for 4 years of school so I had to complete and pay for 1½ years of undergraduate (since this was the cheapest tuition) and then I could use this benefit for the 4 years of pharmacy school. So I actually have just over $20,000 in student loan debt after going to school for around 8 years.
Question: While you were serving in the Army right out of high school, when did you realize you wanted to go to pharmacy school and how did you make that switch?
Answer: I was about 4 years into active duty working in my hospital outpatient pharmacy and I realized that there was only so much I could do as a pharmacy technician. I wanted to be able to answer the patients questions but couldn’t due to lack of knowledge or federal law prohibiting me (as the technician) from counseling. This thirst for knowledge was my primary motivation for wanting to go to pharmacy school. Since the Army does not have a pharmacy school program, you have to finish your time that you signed up for and get out of the Army before going to school full time. I ended up signing up for the Army reserve as my wife was in college at the time and that was how much longer she had left to get her bachelor’s degree. We essentially swapped roles, which for us worked out well.
Question: What are the requirements from the Army in terms of active duty to get professional school tuition paid for? What requirements do you have to fulfill after graduating from pharmacy school and for how long?
Answer: As an active duty soldier, all you really need is your chain of commands approval to start taking classes. This means not getting into trouble, show up when and where you are supposed to, and just doing what you are told. In my experience, it was not hard to get enrolled in classes; it was just learning time management and learning that the program existed! I still had to work 8-10 hours a day five days a week at the hospital and then I went to evening classes 2-3 times a week. The Army has a program called GoArmyED which has a website for soldiers to use to find schools that partner with them. Through their website you enroll into classes and they pay for the tuition. Since I had to get out of the Army before I could go to school full time, I actually no longer have a commitment to the Army after graduation.
Question: While you made the decision right after high school to join the Army, I’m assuming some pharmacy students reading this are considering this option while in pharmacy school. Is it too late? How about those that already graduated? Do they still have the option to go into military service and be eligible for loan forgiveness?
Answer: It is never too late, but I have to stress that it is definitely not for everyone. It takes some resilience and a strong motivating quality to make it through whatever commitment you sign up for. If you have already started pharmacy school I would suggest finishing pharmacy school and enlisting after graduation and taking advantage of the loan forgiveness programs. These amounts are always changing based on the amount of pharmacists the Army needs at the time. Remember that the contracts are a negotiation and if you do not like what they are offering you can walk away. For example, I was originally told that they only had 7-year contracts for pharmacy technicians. I told them that I was not prepared to sign up for 7 years of active duty and that I wanted a lower number. After talking to his manager and looking at my ASVAB score (test taken prior to enlistment kind of like an ACT or SAT) he got my contract lowered to 5 years of active duty. As a pharmacist, you bring a lot to the table so get what works best for you.
Now while in college, it might be best to look into ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps). You can get scholarships based on an agreed upon contract and most importantly it gives you a preview of the Army. You do different training exercises, attend different events, work out and take the Army physical fitness test, etc. Now, with the ROTC program they will help pay for school but there will be in the contract how long you have to serve on active duty post-graduation. The nice part with being a pharmacist is that you jump straight to captain (O-3) after finishing OTS (officer training school, this is like basic training but for officers). Now this means that you will be in a leadership position at your first duty station. So you will be in charge of an inpatient pharmacy, maybe a clinic, or wherever the Army has an opening for an active duty pharmacist. From my experience, active duty pharmacist got moved around every 2-3 years, either deployed or just to another duty station. Like I said, it’s not for everyone so just make sure you ask questions and know what you are getting into. Recruiters lie and typically do not know much about the medical side of the Army. My recruiter did not even know that the Army had pharmacy personnel. Make sure you talk to someone who “specializes” in recruiting pharmacist/medical personnel.
Question: Knowing most graduates are facing approximately $160,000 in student loans when coming out of school, what do you think graduating with only $20,000 (or so) of debt from pharmacy school will mean for you and your family going forward? Would you do it all over again?
Answer: For my family, this means that we are able to start saving more for retirement, and put more money into my sons’ 529 savings accounts for college. I believe that saving for the future is of vital importance, so the earlier I can start the better. I would absolutely go back and join the Army again. The experiences that I had made me more out going, gave me leadership qualities, and since I was smart with my money they set me up to be financially stable. Everyone in the pharmacy world says, “Find something to set yourself apart from the rest of your classmates”. My experiences in the Army have definitely given me plenty of ways to separate myself from my classmates.
On Episode 20 of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we kick off a two-part series to talk about six reasons pharmacy graduates will struggle to build wealth and what they can do to combat these factors working against them.
Episode 20 Special Giveaway
Along with this episode, we are providing a YFP step-by-step spending plan (budget) template that will put you on the path to putting purpose to your spending each month. As this series highlights the factors working against us to build wealth, the reality is that we need to be more intentional about our monthly spending in order to achieve our long-term goals.
This YFP spending plan Excel template is ready to go with formulas that will allow you to easily create a zero-based budget.
